By: Christian Ragland
December 8, 2023

The United Way of Central Iowa has been an early adapter of Clear Impact tools. For years, it has used Scorecard and Compyle to streamline its programs and improve performance reporting. In October, Marian Rueter Godwin of UWCI spoke at a Clear Impact webinar to share how CI Suite has helped them to achieve their goals and, as she put it, “be good stewards of their donors’ dollars.”

1. UWCI Background and Introduction

This will be a condensed version of the presentation; the full recording can be seen on our Vimeo page!

UWCI has been using our Suite for some years, but this story starts in 2021 when a new strategic focus was announced: “United to Thrive.” This new focus specifically named five elements, focused on equity, that should be prioritized to create a thriving community. These five elements are:

• Essential Needs
• Early Childhood Success
• Education Success
• Economic OpportunityHealth & Well-Being

2. CI Suite In United To Thrive: Scorecard

These five elements may seem laser-focused and specific. Still, as a large funder organization, UWCI faced the challenge of tracking the five focuses of United to Thrive across 116 agencies and 190 programs. All of these agencies use Scorecard to report their work. With CI Unlimited Suite, they were able to create custom template Scorecards for every agency and easily track the progress of each program from a centralized account. 

The process is simple for funded organizations: they consistently input the data of their programs in relation to the five focus areas, while UWCI takes the data and uses it in several ways. The first way the data is used is that volunteer United Way cabinet members look at the reported figures and evaluate the performance of programs and agencies through the numbers. 

Additionally, UWCI creates an annual community impact report to gauge the effectiveness of their work. This report contributes to the United Way’s Global Results Framework, a standard framework designed to put results first in impact reporting. By using Scorecard, the United Way grantees are continuously inputting data regularly, making yearly impact reports easy and seamless. 

Finally, UWCI uses Scorecard reports for grant requests. Using consistent reporting via Scorecard allows the United Way and grantees to partner with contractors and collect comparable data. To learn more about how performance measures can be used in writing and overseeing grants and contracts, check out this blog. 

3. CI Suite In United To Thrive: Compyle

Scorecard is the older component of CI Suite, which UWCI has used since the beginning. Compyle is the data collection tool that works with Scorecard to create CI Suite. When Compyle was new, UWCI switched from its previous case management software to Compyle, allowing it to be an optional component for agencies within their organization. This switch led to happier partners and extensive overall savings.

“With our transition from our previous case management system to Compyle, there is over $70,000 in savings for our organization…Our funded partners… our staff find it much easier to use, so everyone is a lot happier with Compyle.” -Marian Rueter Godwin

4. UWCI in Action: Example Scorecards